News

Direction: USA  all that hassle for nothing

Long queues, gruff questioning and an outside chance of having your breasts fondled are all part of the joys of going on holiday in post-9/11 America. Over the past four years, scrutiny at US borders has got tougher and tougher, with nobody safe from the screeners.

And guess what? It hasn’t made one jot of difference. Chiefs at the Department of Homeland Security have admitted that security at US airports is no better than it was the last time they investigated it two years ago.

In 2003, a report found that it was possible to smuggle knives, guns and fake bombs through airports. The latest investigation suggests little improvement. Security officials were “diligent in the performance of their duties”, but “significant improvement may not be possible without greater use of new technology”.

Diligent is the right word. At Christmas, we reported that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA, also known to